Vadlejch has been named Czech Athlete of the Year for the second consecutive year. Photo credit: olympijskytym.cz.
Prague, Nov 5 (CTK) – Javelin thrower Jakub Vadlejch, who won a bronze medal at the world championships and a silver medal at the European championships, has for the second year running been named as the Czech Athlete of the Year, as announced at Saturday’s award ceremony organised by the Czech Athletics Association.
Last year, Vadlejch became the first male poll winner since decathlete Roman Šebrle in 2006.
This year, he finished ahead of another javelin thrower, Barbora Spotakova, who has won the annual award nine times in the past, and won a bronze medal at the European championships this year. This year marks the final time that Spotakova took part in the Czech Athlete of the Year poll, as she retired at the age of 41 two months ago.
Shot putter Tomas Stanek, who also won a bronze medal at the last European championships, was third in the poll.
Vadlejch is the only Czech athlete who has been regularly successful at recent world sporting events. This season, he threw more than 90 metres for the first time in his career. He was the only Czech who won a medal at the world athletics championships in Eugene, USA, in July.
Vadlejch said at the ceremony that he was happy to win the medals, but even more so that he finally threw over 90 metres.
Four javelin throwers were among the six best Czech athletes of 2022. Apart from Vadlejch and Spotakova, they included Vitezslav Vesely and Nikola Ogrodnikova.
Vadlejch’s coach Jan Zelezny, himself one of the Czech Republic’s all-time greatest Olympians, was named the coach of the year for the 7th time.
Dorota Skrivanova, who was fifth in women’s heptathlon at the indoor athletics championships, was named the discovery of the year.
Jakub Dudycha, who won the European junior championship in the 800 metre race, was named junior of the year.
